Cited by 105Alzheimer's disease research and treatmentsCholinesterase and Neurodegenerative DiseasesDementia and Cognitive Impairment Research

New therapeutics beyond amyloid-β and tau for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease

Open access
Zhang, Feng, Zhong, Ru-jia, Cheng, Cheng, Li, Song, Le, Wei-dong·2021·Acta Pharmacologica Sinica

Abstract

As the population ages, Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common neurodegenerative disease in elderly people, will impose social and economic burdens to the world. Currently approved drugs for the treatment of AD including cholinesterase inhibitors (donepezil, rivastigmine, and galantamine) and an N-methyl-D-aspartic acid receptor antagonist (memantine) are symptomatic but poorly affect the progression of the disease. In recent decades, the concept of amyloid-β (Aβ) cascade and tau hyperphosphorylation leading to AD has dominated AD drug development. However, pharmacotherapies targeting Aβ and tau have limited success. It is generally believed that AD is caused by multiple pathological processes resulting from Aβ abnormality, tau phosphorylation, neuroinflammation, neurotransmitter dysregulation, and oxidative stress. In this review we updated the recent development of new therapeutics that regulate neurotransmitters, inflammation, lipid metabolism, autophagy, microbiota, circadian rhythm, and disease-modified genes for AD in preclinical research and clinical trials. It is to emphasize the importance of early diagnosis and multiple-target intervention, which may provide a promising outcome for AD treatment.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1038/s41401-020-00565-5

Cites

118 of 118 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The majority of phase II and III trials center around neurotransmitter receptors and Aβ mechanisms, while tau and inflammation drugs are more prominent in phase II, often featuring repurposed compounds.

    “The majority of phase II and III trials center around neurotransmitter receptors and Aβ mechanisms, while tau and inflammation drugs are more prominent in phase II, often featuring repurposed compounds.”

    From Recent advances in Alzheimer's disease: Mechanisms, clinical trials and new drug development strategies. (2024) · cites this paper as [437]

    Table 1 lists phase II and III trials of neurotransmitter-receptor drugs and some Aβ- or inflammation-related drugs, including phase II trials of minocycline and statins (table displayed under “GENE AND CELL THERAPIES Antisense therapy”; page unavailable). It does not establish that receptor and Aβ mechanisms account for a majority of trials, that tau and inflammation drugs are more prominent in phase II, or that the compounds in question are often repurposed. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • The major mechanisms of action of AD trials center around neurotransmitter receptors, Aβ, tau proteins, and inflammation.

    “The major mechanisms of action center around: 1) neurotransmitter receptors, including AChE, NMDA receptor, 5-hydroxytryptamine receptor, nicotinic α7 receptor, and adrenoceptor; 2) Aβ, including the reduction of Aβ production (such as γ-secretase inhibitors and modulators, BACE1 inhibitors, and α-secretase activators), prevention of Aβ aggregation, and enhancing Aβ clearance (vaccines and ant”

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Zhang, F., Zhong, R.-J., Cheng, C., Li, S., & Le, W.-D.
Affiliations
Dalian Medical University (CN)
Venue
Acta Pharmacologica Sinica
Published
2020-12-02
Volume
42
Issue
9
Pages
1382-1389
ISSN
  • 0253-9756 (ISSN-L)
  • 1671-4083
  • 1745-7254
OpenAlex
W3106951507
Cited by
105
References
118
Citations by year
2026: 9 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 32 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 12
FWCI
1.88
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Acta Pharmacologica Sinica (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
National Natural Science Foundation of China (81771521)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Alzheimer's disease research and treatments
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology › Cholinesterase and Neurodegenerative Diseases
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
Keywords
Alzheimer's disease, amyloid-beta, tau hyperphosphorylation, disease-modifying therapy, neuroinflammation, neurotransmitter dysregulation, oxidative stress, lipid metabolism, autophagy, gut microbiota, circadian rhythm, early diagnosis, cholinesterase inhibitors, memantine, preclinical drug development
MeSH terms
Neuroinflammatory Diseases, Aged, Alzheimer Disease, Cholinesterase Inhibitors, Humans, Phosphorylation, Amyloid beta-Peptides, tau Proteins, Neurodegenerative Diseases

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review